Habitat Effect on Urban Roof Vegetation

Abstract

Urban growth has been fast for decades. Because money is very important in this urban-based world, humanity focuses on economic development, and is often too busy to deal with sustainability. Therefore, in a world that is constantly changing, creating sustainable cities that contain a diverse range of habitats supporting plant establishment is essential. Some surprising urban habitats in which plants can grow, such as cracks on pavements and walls, rocky areas, abandoned places and roofs might be extremely important for sustainability, while urban spaces are under artificial pressure. In this study, which suggesting a method to create more sustainable green roofs for urban areas, and considering roof vegetation is already important for supporting the ecology of urban areas, we surveyed 37 roofs in an urban part of Trabzon city focusing on the habitat effect. We found 51 plant species growing on these 37 roofs, and determined five different roof vegetation typologies in the research area. The main goal in any artificial green roof is to cover roof surfaces with vegetation, and success is considered a perfect coverage rate. We found roof surface size, species richness, size of the sunlit part, daily sunlight duration, and depth of the substrate are the most effective habitat attributes on vegetation coverage on rooftops in the research area.

Green-Roof: The Role of Community in the Substitution of Green-Space toward Sustainable Development

“…In another study, Emrah Yalcinalp et al (2017) considered the use of vegetation on green-roofs [22]. The green-roof is a method of sustainable residential roofing for urban areas, taking into account that roof vegetation will support the ecology of urban areas.…”

Biodiversity Impact of Green Roofs and Constructed Wetlands as Progressive Eco-Technologies in Urban Areas

“…Again, functional traits play a role, with succulent Sedum and also moss species thriving in shallow substrates but other (mainly non-succulent but also Sedum species [86]) species (e.g., grasses) gaining in dominance with increasing substrate depth [61,64]. Consequently, overall plant abundance increases with substrate depth [62,63,70,87] as it does with irrigation [71] and shade [88,89], i.e., favorable conditions. Increased vegetation cover and height, in turn, affect arthropods, with species such as bees that mainly prefer open, sunny sites decreasing in abundance but species such as many spiders that hunt within vegetation increasing in abundance [73].…”

“…Long-and short-lived species were evenly distributed [54,69,72]. Among life form types, hemicryptophytes were most abundant on spontaneously colonized roofs [87,92], and dominance of life forms on extensive green roofs varied with climate [89]. Although, a preference for using succulents exists within cultivated species [101] and roofs mainly promote stress-tolerant traits (e.g., evergreen habit, succulence, CAM-photosynthesis, [102]), Lundholm et al [94] were able to show a high variation in leaf traits and plant height on a green roof in Halifax.…”

“…Ten (12.99%) of the 77 articles reported whether species were native or exotic. Seven of these investigated vascular plant species and partly reported high percentages of exotic species: 61.5% on spontaneously colonized roofs across Knoxville and Knox County, USA [42], 50% on a green roof in Chiba City [54], 47.06% across 37 green roofs in Trabzon City, Turkey [87], and 70% of all cultivated plant species across 115 green roofs in France [100]. However, green roofs do not generally seem to be hotspots of exotic plant species: On a green roof in Rotherham, UK all weeds were native species from dry-open land [69], and in France, 85.8% of spontaneous plant species were native [100].…”

Determining Factors to Improve Urban Environment with the Biophilic Urbanism Approach: A Case Study of Torghabeh City

“…Rapid urbanisation and the continuous expansion of cities have affected the natural environment so adversely that more than 50% of the people in the world can no longer benefit from nature as before (Shwartz et al, 2014). Around 2% of the world is inhabited, with 50% of its population living in cities, which means the need for more construction and better infrastructure will lead to more catastrophic problems for people living in urban areas in the next 50 years (Yalcinalp et al, 2017). Urban expansion has put most of the world’s population’s health as well as general well-being at risk.…”